UCD Lifelong Learning courses are part-time specific interest courses that are participative, engaging and facilitated by experts in their field. This year UCD continues its partnership with the National Library of Ireland and dlr Lexicon by offering a number of history courses as part of the Lifelong Learning programme.

UCD Open Learning gives adult learners the opportunity to study a range of undergraduate modules in UCD. There are no formal entry requirements and Open Learning modules are open to everyone. Individuals can take any combination of modules for interest only (audit) or deepen their learning by completing course assessment (credit).
This academic year (2016/2017), UCD School of History is offering a great range of Open Learning module options.

In episode 15 of History Hub's podcast series – ‘Kingdom, Empire and Plus Ultra: conversations on the history of Portugal and Spain, 1415-1898‘ - Professor Carla Rahn Phillips is in conversation with series host Dr Edward Collins. In the episode, which is available to podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud, they discuss The Armada of the Strait of Magellan, 1581-1584 and the struggle for the South Atlantic.

In October 2017 David Rieff visited Queen's University Belfast to speak about his book 'In Praise of Forgetting, Historical Memory and its Ironies'. The talk was jointly organised by the Belfast International Arts Festival and 'Commemorating Partition and Civil Wars in Ireland, 2020-23', an AHRC-funded project led by Dr Marie Coleman and Dr Dominic Bryan at Queen's.

The Abbey of St Thomas the Martyr owes its existence to two events: the murder of Thomas Becket in December 1170, and King Henry II’s subsequent incursion into Ireland less than a year later. In a paper recorded at a Dublin City Council symposium on The Abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, UCD historian Michael Staunton shows how Henry II’s invasion of Ireland in 1171 ultimately led to his reconciliation with Thomas, and the founding of an abbey in Becket's honour in 1177.